Mallika Dureja
According to an advisor to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan will cease to exist if it is unable to stem the decline in its fertility rate, which poses a threat to its social safety net and economy.
“If we continue on this path, the country will vanish,” Masako Mori said in an interview in Tokyo on February 28 after Japan reported a record-low birth rate for last year. “Those who are forced to endure the process of extinction will suffer tremendous damage. Those infants will be affected by a terrible disease, she added.
In Japan, there were less than 800,000 births and approximately 1.58 million fatalities in the previous year. Kishida has pledged to double spending on children and families in an effort to halt the decline, which is accelerating quicker than anticipated.
From a height of just over 128 million in 2008, the population has declined to 124.6 million, and the rate of decline is accelerating. The percentage of individuals aged 65 and older increased to over 29% in the past year. While South Korea has a reduced fertility rate, Japan is experiencing a faster population decline.
Mori, a member of the upper house and former minister who advises Kishida on the birthrate problem and LGBTQ issues, stated, “It’s not falling gradually; it’s heading directly down.” “Children born today will be thrust into a society that becomes distorted, diminishes, and loses its capacity to function”
She added that if nothing is done, the social security system would disintegrate, industrial and economic strength would decline, and there would be insufficient recruits for the Self-Defense Forces to defend the nation.
